The deaths of four members of a U.S. Special Forces team in Niger was a sad reminder that America still has servicemen in harm’s way overseas.

One of the hopes journalist Martha Raddatz has for the limited series “The Long Road Home” – which tells of a deadly battle in Iraq – is that it will remind Americans “that soldiers are just like the rest of us.”

“One day they are in their minivans with their car-seats, and a few days later they’re off in this war zone. It’s also a reminder of how their families are bearing the burden for most of us.”

That’s what happens in National Geographic’s eight-part “The Long Road,” the adaptation of Raddatz’s book premiering Nov. 7. It recounts a heroic fight for survival during the Iraq War when a small platoon from the 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood was ambushed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad, a day that came to be known as Black Sunday.

That day would change the American military’s mission in Iraq from a peacekeeping mission to fighting a Shiite insurgency.

“The U.S. didn’t want to fight an insurgency but the insurgents had a different idea and so the U.S. had to adapt to that,” says Raddatz. A little less than a year before the Sadr City battle, President George W. Bush had stood before a “Mission Accomplished” sign and stated that major combat in Iraq was over.

Raddatz, who had been covering Iraq since May 2003, learned about the ferocious battle months after it happened. The journalist, who is the Chief Global Affairs Correspondent for ABC News, then went back and carefully reconstructed events, getting to know the surviving soldiers and their wives along the way.

“The families couldn’t have been more generous and open and the soldiers, too,” says Raddatz. “You have to give them credit, because they didn’t know what I would write.”

Like the book, the miniseries cuts between events in Iraq and the home front back in Texas. Unlike past wars where the action was far away, the wives and families of the soldiers knew within hours that there was a deadly battle in Sadr City.

Rumors spread quickly by cell phone. So relatives of the men – many who had just transferred into Iraq – knew they had been in a fight, but only afterwards would they find out their fates.

The First Cavalry platoon under Lt. Shane Aguero (played by E.J. Bonilla in the series) had been assigned to assist with sewage disposal in Sadr City, a slum on the edge of Baghdad that until then had been considered a peaceful area of the country.

The patrol was ambushed by insurgents and cut off. Back at the First Cavalry’s base camp, Col. Gary Volesky (“House of Cards’” Michael Kelly) and Capt. Troy Denomy (Jason Ritter) launch the first of three rescue missions to retake the city and free their men.

The production team of “The Long Road Home” actually built the set for Sadr City at Fort Hood where the real-life soldiers had trained before going to Iraq.

The series is executive produced by Mike Medavoy, and he and Raddatz have been trying to get the story to the screen for a decade. Medavoy has produced movies such as “Apocalypse Now,” “Dances With Wolves” and “Platoon,” but he was thrilled to make “The Long Road Home” for television.

Michael Kelly as Lt. Col. Gary Volesky in “The Long Road Home.”

“I think this is a great vehicle to tell the story,” he says. “We talked about trying to put it into two hours, but it was pretty clear to me that you couldn’t tell the story as well as it could be told in this format.”

Each of the eight different episodes is from a different perspective of a different soldier and their family.

Many of the actors got to meet and get to know their real-life counterpart. Gary Volesky, who now is a U.S. Army lieutenant general who serves as commander of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis–McChord, received a Silver Star for the battle and was deployed a number of times back to Iraq.

“General Volesky is still trying to do good,” observes Raddatz, “You still see him trying to make a difference and not just trying to be a warrior.”

Michael Kelly says it was an “enormous responsibility” to portrays Volesky in “The Long Road Home,” but hopes that the series also imparts the sacrifice of those at home.

“War is not just that guy who is dying in his brother’s arms,” he says. “It’s also that woman who has to tell her child, ‘You’re never going to see your dad again.’”

Jon Beavers tells a story about the soldier he was portraying – Sgt. Eric Bourquin, who also served as an adviser on the series.

“I asked him early on, ‘How did you know that you were good at soldiering?’” relates Beavers. “And he said, ‘The entire time that I was serving, I was waiting for someone to walk up to me and say, ‘You know, I figured it out. You have no idea what you’re doing.’”

Bourquin’s story is told in Episode 7 called “Abandon Hope” and will air on Dec. 12. He served 15 years in the Army before retiring in 2013. He was deployed three times to Iraq and Afghanistan. (The New York Times recently noted that the U.S. now has “over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories.”)

“I hope that the audience takes home the sacrifice made,” says Bourquin about the series, “and they understand that the story is about family. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about nobody can do it alone.”

The Long Road Home

What: Eight-part series depicting the battle in Iraq that turned the war into a fight against insurgents.

Rob Lowman began at the L.A. Daily News working in editing positions on the news side, including working on Page 1 the day the L.A. Riots began in 1992. In 1993, he made the move to features, and in 1995 became the Entertainment Editor for 15 years. He returned to writing full time in 2010. Throughout his career he has interviewed a wide range of celebrities in the arts. The list includes the likes of Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood to Kristin Stewart and Emma Stone in Hollywood; classical figures like Yo Yo Ma and Gustavo Dudamel to pop stars like Norah Jones, Milly Cyrus and Madonna; and authors such as Joseph Heller, John Irving and Lee Child. Rob has covered theater, dance and the fine arts as well as reviewing film, TV and stage. He has also covered award shows and written news stories related to the entertainment business. A longtime resident of Santa Clarita, Rob is still working on his first more-than-30-year marriage, has three grown children (all with master's degrees) and five guitars.

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